Do you think much about what your chosen jig head seems to do best, or is it just me?

I was out yesterday and for a good bit of the time I was bumping some of the new colours of the Savage Gear Sandeel V2 Weedless lures around over some shallowish, very rough ground. I have told you before how I pushed Mads hard to please design me the one jig head for the Sandeel V2 Weedless which would work really well for swimming and for bumping around over rough ground especially. I always believe in credit where credit is due, for as much time as I have spent bumping various soft plastics around in estuary current, it was a couple of north Cornwall anglers who really turned me on to bumping soft plastics over shallow, reefy ground……………

And as much as I also really like lures such as the regular J-hook Savage Gear Sandeel V2 or the Fiiish Black Minnow with those (more pointy) Offshore jig heads, they obviously aren’t the best shape of jig head for bumping around over rough ground. Pretty obvious I grant you, but even though I don’t pay for the Savage Gear lures I use for my fishing due to the work I do with them, I still don’t like losing fishing tackle because I think it’s taking the piss to become remotely blase about this sort of stuff.

Just because a lure might have a weedless design and a particular shape of jig head that’s better for rough ground bumping, it doesn’t mean you aren’t going to snag up from time to time. I only have a few of the new colours of these Savage Gear Sandeel V2 Weedless lures here and they are needed for some filming work next week. When I got hung up in the bricks yesterday with one of the new colours and pulled for a break, I took the executive decision to stop fishing with the lures and save the ones I have for filming. These mature decisions I have to make eh?!

I don’t quite know why it took me so long to come around to the excellent Decoy Violence VJ-36 weedless jig heads - thanks Dave for nudging me in the right direction! - but I always carry a few with me these days. I particularly like them for the Slender Scoop Shads because I am convinced that these awesome paddletails benefit a little bit when the weight is towards the front instead of under the belly. Marginal at best, and it’s only a feeling I have come to over a lot of fishing time with these lures now, but I do like marrying up the Slender Scoop Shads with the various sizes and weights of Decoy Violence VJ-36 weedless jig heads (check here for the specific lure sizes I marry to the different jig heads). Plus various other soft plastics on these jig heads of course.

But my go-to for bumping lures over shallowish rough ground is still the Sandeel V2 Weedless in the two different sizes. I have so much confidence in these lures, but yesterday I had to take the decision to stop using them as I simply can’t rock up to a filming project having lost all the lures which we need to spend a bit of filming time on! I would more usually swim and sink/draw those weedless Decoy jig heads and I can’t really remember giving them much if any time as a jig head and soft plastic combination for bumping around over the rough stuff.

Having to be Captain Sensible yesterday though, I decided that it was time to put those Decoy Violence VJ-36 weedless jig heads through their “bumping around” paces and risk a few losses. If you already fish like this a lot with these specific jig heads then so be it, I’m late to the party, but I have always got too much stuff on the go to test and evaluate and sometimes something has to wait a bit. I know I most likely got a bit lucky yesterday - not on the fishing front I might add! - but I didn’t snag up once when bumping a 15cm Slender Scoop Shad around on the 4/0 14g Decoy weedless jig head (I haven’t taken any photos yet of this specific combination so please bear that in mind as regards the photos here today).

It felt really good bumping those jig heads around as I maintained contact with the rocky ground literally right up to my feet, and like with the Sandeel V2 Weedless jig head design, you can easily pick the pace up and/or adjust your rod angle if you want to swim the lure instead of bumping it along the bottom. I was expecting to snag up at least a few times because it’s some seriously rough ground, but I kept the lures moving and over time you can kinda react to a potential snagging situation and often pull the lure out of harm’s way - and I didn’t get hung up in the bricks once. Very impressive. Nothing remotely revolutionary I grant you, but it’s another thing which gets me thinking and plotting and planning……………

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